Forced Sabattical

This is a draft from April I found in here, I thought it would be interesting to post and compare to what's going on now.

In what has been the worst coincidence, the nicest weather in months has coincided with the rise of toe-zilla. This freakish toe swelling has left me sidelined long enough to evaluate the last few weeks of riding, and make me consider writing in my neglected blog again.

Two weeks ago I attended my first group ride. Portland Velo's Thursday rides are a standard route into Vancouver. The first time out there were only three of us, and I was the only one not currently racing. Since the ride leader was a cross between Lance Armstrong and R. Lee Ermey, we pushed the pace to 20+ mph for the whole ride, leaving my dangling off the back for much of the ride. Luckily despite my climbing like Wim Vansevenant, and descending like molasses the other two were nice enough to stop and wait for me from time to time. This wasn't the case this past week when a much larger group turned out allowing me and another equally befuddled rider to wander aimlessly through the 'couve hoping to find our way home. Despite this it seems like adding group riding to my schedule has encouraged me to push the pace in a way I struggle to do on my own, and I have seen a gain in both climbing speed and average speed for rides since I started.

The next step is adding a second weekly ride, I am thinking about giving Team Oregon a try since they are race focused. We'll see how it goes, and whether my rhuematologist clears me to go out on the bike again before cross season begins.